


Heavy lies the head (that wishes for a crown)

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Alea iacta est [10]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Family Dynamics, Female Friendship, Implied/Referenced Incest, Non-Graphic Violence, Parent-Child Relationship, Pre-Series, Racism, Sexism, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6678394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Baela Targaryen is the eldest, the most capable, and the only girl. Her crown must be shared with her brother, and in her darkest moments, she hates the gods for making the world mad, outside of Dorne.</p><p>Baela Breakspear and her family, and all their trials.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Baela Breakspear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tywinning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/gifts).



> A) Still got a massive incest squick. I just sort of shoved all that incest off the page and sort of glossed over it in my head. It was all that worked for the story I wanted to tell, so. Here we are.
> 
> B) this is totally Lauren's fault. Part two to follow soon, I think.

**i.**

Baela wears her name like a shroud, just as she wears her sex like a punishment.

"If only we were Dornish," she sighs, so often, lying across one of their mother's low couches, resplendent in tourmaline and fuchsia and indigo such as none of the rest of them could ever wear. Her wrists jingle when she moves, the loops of gold and gemstones hanging heavy in her ears, her hair a shining tumble of black-brown over her shoulder.

Aerys hates his sister. She is not beautiful as their mother is, not regal as their father is, but she is  _ vibrant,  _ and so people notice her before they notice him, and not only because she dresses so aggressively in the Dornish style, to match her Dornish looks and Dornish spirit.

She is twelve, his elder by two years, and he hates her, because if they were Dornish, Dragonstone would be hers instead of his and he might leave for the Citadel.

People expect her to be pious, like their grand-uncle for whom she was named, but Baela is suspicious of the gods, who she feels punish women for being able to bear children where men cannot. She hates being a woman, he thinks, because she cannot have Dragonstone, and she  _ wants _ it.

Aerys does not want it, has never wanted it, but it is his, and he hates Baela for making him feel as though she  _ deserves  _ it, somehow.

"If only we were Dornish," she sighs, dripping across satin pillows like the Dornish whore people whisper she will become, golden bracelets sliding from her wrists to her elbows, and Mother only clucks at her without any reprimand, and Aerys  _ hates  _ her.

**ii.**

Baela is Rhaegel's champion, and he is glad of it.

He knows that Aerys disapproves - Aerys always does, jealous as he is of Baela's charm, resentful as he is that she has so much of their parents' love, furious as he is that someday, Baela will be his wife and Queen, when he wants no wife, no crown, only a maester's chain.

Baela is also half a foot taller than Aerys, who is not big for ten-and three, and  _ strong _ \- her arms and legs are hard with muscle, because she spends half her time ahorse, and cajoled Father into allowing her the use of a longbow and, when hunting in the kingswood with certain companions, a spear - and so Aerys has no chance of victory here, which he surely hates. Aerys likes only his books, and getting his own way, and today he has neither.

Little Maekar, who is not really so little but who  _ is  _ the youngest of them, sits directly opposite Rhaegel. Usually, they are paired opposite - Baela with Maekar, Aerys with Rhaegel - but Maekar had, in one of his odd little shows of justice and fairness, insisted that Rhaegel be allowed to win today, and so Baela ought to ride for him instead.

Aerys had turned as purple as Baela's silk shirt at that, but their sister had only laughed, throwing back her head so the sun caught on the amethyst in her nose and the lavender ribbons curling through the thick plait of her hair. She looked much more a Princess than Aerys did a Prince, and Rhaegel was moved with pity, something he knows Aerys would also hate, but which rises so often, when they are all of them together.

There are crowds, too, but Rhaegel never notices crowds - they make him anxious when he does, unless he has Baela or Maekar with him, so he pours all of his focus into his brothers and sister, who are safe, and who know him well enough to expect no more than he can give.

Baela's horse is a sand steed, usually unsuited for such as this, but here it is better than Aerys' clumsy-looking charger. The course is short, and narrow, and in truth Aerys should have chosen a lighter horse, but he is angry, and he never chooses well when he is angry.

And besides, Rhaegel usually chooses Aerys' horse for him. Maekar does not have much of a way with animals, and so perhaps he put his knowledge of true jousts to use, in the wrong.

Baela's padded coat is overlaid in rich ox-blood leather, a warm colour which suits her well, but Aerys' is dull black and scarred from use, and for a moment, as their horses churn the earth and the air fills with thundering hooves and the scent of torn grass, Rhaegel thinks that mayhaps, today is Aerys' day.

But then he is on the ground, and the mock-lance with its tip wrapped in a bundle of cloth stolen from the washerwomen and tied around with one of Baela's purple hair ribbons is splintered on the ground beside a groaning, swearing Aerys, and even Maekar laughs when Baela curses aloud for fear of what Father will say when he hears that she has been  _ jousting. _

**iii.**

"Hail, Breakspear," some lout or other calls, and Maekar's ears burn with fury for his sister's sake. 

"Do not let it worry you, little brother," Baela soothes him, patting his arm and smiling a little - a smile marred by a broken nose, marred and somehow made all the lovelier - and shaking her head. "I don't, nor do our father or mother. I am well able to defend my own honour."

It is on the tip of Maekar's tongue to say that Baela should not  _ have _ to defend her own honour, that it should fall to Aerys, as her eldest brother and her betrothed, to Rhaegel, as her closest brother and her confidant, to Maekar, as her only brother fit to wield a sword.

But he says nothing. She would hate to hear it coming from him, when she hears it so often from Aerys, who has always forsworn taking her as his true wife even if Father forces the marriage, because Aerys is a fool who sees his own middling worth as superior to Baela's.

Baela is the only person in the world that Maekar is sure he loves, and it scares him a little to think of her trapped as Aerys' wife. Aerys will not rape and beat her, of that he is certain, but no one has ever been able to hurt her heart as Aerys can, because no one has ever known her so well as Aerys. 

Maekar sometimes wishes he could take his mace to Aerys for how he speaks to Baela, but he knows he never can. It would be kinslaying, sinful in the eyes of the gods, and murder, and would cause upset to Father and Mother and to Baela and Rhaegel.

"There are representatives from House Arryn," Baela confides to him, and he is glad that she no longer has to stoop quite so far to whisper in his ear. He has always hated being so much younger and smaller than her, when she and Rhaegel were the only ones who remembered he was there half the time, and as a boy he had wished that  _ he _ might have been the eldest, so that he could wed her and keep her safe from Aerys' malice.

He knows better now, of course - confusing though she might be, Maekar looks forward to wedding Dyanna Dayne when they both turn six-and-ten, and he knows that he and Baela would not suit one another as man and wife, not as their mother and father suit one another.

He wonders if anyone will ever suit Baela, and prays to gods he is not sure he trusts that he and Dyanna will fit. Maekar takes so little interest in people that he has no clue how she might regard him, and even Baela's reassurances that Dyanna's blushes were for him, not for embarrassment at his conduct, had done little to ease his uncertainty.

Still, they have six years to wait. Baela Breakspear, a princess of House Targaryen who looks and sounds and acts a Martell, has less than two years before Aerys is forced to swap one Targaryen cloak for another, and if Maekar could find a Dyanna for her, he would.

If he told her so, he knows that she would smile and tell him that she was honoured that the valiant heart of a prince was so stirred for her sake, but he knows that she would not take her seriously. She loves him best of everyone, but he is still only ten, and of no use to her.

**iv.**

Baela Targaryen is a Dornishwoman, never mind her name, and Jena has already half decided to hate her by the time she arrives in King's Landing to take her place in the Princess' household.

She is taken aback by her greeting - her father is stiff at her side, and is quickly ushered away to speak with the King, but Jena finds herself dragged along by a Dornish girl who took her hand as if it is the most natural thing in the world. 

Jena is tall, boyish and broad even at seven-and-ten, but the Dornish girl is taller, and when she turns her head to chatter over her shoulder and smile, Jena can see that her nose has been broken just as Jena's brother's nose, as if by a fist! A  _ fist! _

She follows, though, because the grooms who had come to greet them and to guide her father had not paid the girl any mind, and so she assumes that the girl is some over-familiar handmaiden of the Princess', and resigns herself to discomfort in the coming months. 

When they arrive in the infamous Maidenvault, remodelled since its initial use so that the windows are now vast and thrown wide open, Jena finds that she has been terribly wrong, because every other girl and woman gathered there dips into a curtsy when the Dornish girl with the broken nose and the dusty skirts sweeps through the door, Jena on her heels.

"I am sorry, Lady Jena," the Princess says, although by her smile she is clearly not. "I like to greet all my new ladies personally, and you are the first I had never met before - I prefer to keep things a little less  _ formal,  _ at least for now."

Jena drops into a slow curtsy, sure that her face must be as red as her hair, and dares to chance a look about the great room - silks and lurid colours, great bursts of flowers and tapestries in a style Jena does not recognise, low couches and enormous pillows, big enough to sit on comfortably - and wonders how she is to make a home here.

_ Less formal. _ More Dornish, the Princess surely means.

But then, perhaps Jena is being unkind. Her own lady mother is no Marcher, and Jena and her brothers have long suffered whispers and mockery for how  _ soft  _ they surely are. The Princess carries a great weight on her shoulders, the only daughter of an uncertain King and his unwanted Queen, the mother-to-be of a dynasty, even if she is not yet wed, never mind with child.

"May I have the day, Your Highness," she tries, rising and clasping her hands in front of her, hoping that will hide how they shake, "to familiarise myself with the way of things, before I take up my duties?"

Baela Breakspear laughs, the amethyst in her broken nose catching the light and the purple shine hidden in her dark, Dornish eyes, and she seizes Jena's clasped hands in her own as though it is all a most marvellous jape.

"Oh, sweet lady," she says, shaking her head so hard that Jena fears that her beautiful earring will fall to the ground, "we have only a week or so here in the Maidenvault of my grand-aunts before we will be moved to Dragonstone - were you not warned that your time here would be so brief?"

Jena was warned, and forgot, and is embarrassed once again. Only the Princess' smile save her her blushes this time, and she is stunned when Princess Baela presses a kiss to her hand, as a courting knight might, before passing her into the care of another woman, this one with the striking features Jena had expected of a Targaryen.

"Laena will care for you for now, Lady Jena," the Princess says, her smile remaining everywhere but her eyes. "I must depart, now that I have delivered you here, and see to my  _ betrothed. _ "

The unexpected venom hurts even Jena, who is all but a stranger, and Laena reached out a hand to stroke the backs of two fingers down the Princess' tight jaw.

"All will be well," she says, and Jena notices the Penrose quills in Laena's hair and thinks,  _ oh gods, this is Elaena of the Maidenvault's daughter! _ "We will never allow harm to come to you, Princess, you know that."

Baela takes one of Laena's hands and one of Jena's, kisses them both, and then sweeps away in her dusty skirts, with her broken nose, and Jena stands watching her, wondering how she ever believed the Princess a handmaiden.

**v.**

Daeron has always loved Baela best of his children - Mariah would be outraged if he ever said as much aloud, but it is true, if only because of all their children, only Baela has anything of Mariah's nature, to match Mariah's look.

She seems nothing at all like Mariah, not now, as she stands in her dressing gown and tries desperately not to cry. She looks younger than eighteen, tall and strong-limbed though she is, and he wishes that he might offer her some true comfort.

"He has shamed me," she says, voice trembling harder even than her hands. "Aerys has always hated me, Father, and his forswearing my bed before we were even married was insult enough, but I did not think he would shame me. I did not think he thought so little of us all to do such a thing."

Daeron ought to have caught Aerys, he knows that - Mariah has told him as much, over and over again in the days since Aerys fled for the Citadel, shunning Baela once and for all, leaving her abandoned and mocked the whole length of the realm.

"Why would he do this to me, Papa?" she asks, coming down from her dressing stool and stepping into his arms. She is too tall for it now, but still she tucks her head under his chin to hide her face as she weeps. "What did I ever do to make him hate me so?"

Daeron's heart is broken for his sweet girl, his favourite, and if he had it in him, he thinks that he would hate Aerys for this. Maekar does already, gods forgive him, and even Rhaegel has been stirred from his dreams enough to express anger on Baela's behalf, but Mariah's anger is all for Daeron, for not understanding his children better.

He had thought - had  _ hoped _ \- that Aerys' theatrics about never bedding Baela had been just that, nonsense to stir Daeron's anger so that he might be convinced to break the betrothal. He had  _ hoped _ that it was over some other woman, that at least Aerys would bed  _ someone _ if a betrothal could be arranged, but instead, he had let his son and heir slip through his fingers, as careless as his own father if in a different way, and now there was only dreaming Rhaegel and drifting Maekar, the one unfit and the other unready.

"Am I to wed Rhaegel now, Father?" she asks without lifting her head, and Daeron presses a hand over her thick hair and holds her close. There have been informal discussions of wedding Rhaegel to pretty little Alys Arryn for years now, and Rhaegel blushes so furiously pink every time the girl's name is mentioned that Daeron thinks that even idle-minded Rhaegel can fall in love, and it would do no one any good to break even that informal arrangement.

But that leaves his girl, his Princess, without harbour. Who is there for her to wed, if not Rhaegel? Maekar has been betrothed to the Dayne girl since they were hardly more than babes in arms, three weeks between their ages and the whole world between their manners, but Daeron has never considered another for Baela than Aerys, because he never, ever believed that his own son could be so damned defiant as his own  _ bloody _ father.

_ The Arryns will have to make do with a grandson _ , Daeron thinks, kissing Baela's hair and wishing that the world were not so cruel to women. "Aye, sweetling," he says, "if you can wait another little while."

**vi.**

Aerys writes pathetic, pleading letters to Mariah from time to time, insisting in his petulant way that Baela's pain was not his fault, but of their father's making, and Mariah burns every one of them. She cannot hate her son, but she  _ loathes _ what he did to his sister, to her  _ daughter,  _ and wishes all over again that she could sweep Baela away to Dorne, where she would be given her dues as firstborn and most able.

Tomorrow, even though it turns her stomach so completely that she cannot eat, Mariah will watch her beautiful girl wed her sweetest son, because such is the way of the Targaryens. Rhaegel will treat Baela well, will be kind and good and respectful, because such is his way, and doubtless he will give her beautiful children, but he will not  _ challenge  _ her.

Baela is too much like Mariah herself for Mariah to be happy about this, even without the question of the incest - that, she has more or less made her peace with, because she has known since the moment Aerys slipped from her body and was declared a boy that Baela would wed her brother, even if it will not be the brother they all assumed. Baela will grow bored, even with her wild ladies, and in that boredom will come the great, seeping sadness that grows into a sickness, such as Mariah had seen in her goodmother after the Dragonknight's death. 

The thought of Baela wasting away like that, of losing her beautiful girl to that terrible nothingness, is almost more than Mariah can bear, but she knows that she must keep her fears hidden from Baela, who is already uncertain of this whole affair.

After all, one brother has already left her standing at the altar, more or less. What is to stop the next one from doing the same?

Baela's rooms are yet in the Maidenvault, now so changed as to be unrecognisable, so changed that even Elaena feels comfortable within its walls, and Mariah does not think to knock when she crosses the great chamber to Baela's little study, tucked away behind a door of shining aspen, because Baela has never expected her to knock before.

From the way Baela draws away from sharp Jena Dondarrion, Mariah thinks that perhaps she ought to start knocking, and that mayhap Baela won't be quite so  _ bored _ as she had feared.

**vii.**

Dyanna arrives in King's Landing a full year before she and Maekar are due to wed, giddy and terrified in equal measure, and is given the Maidenvault for her own. There will be ladies to fill it, eventually, but for now there is just her and her maids, and Serra Blackmont, who will only be here for half a year before she returns to Dorne to wed Daryn Yronwood. 

But then, six weeks after Dyanna arrives, six weeks of Maekar rushing into the great audience chamber of the Maidenvault and rushing back out with pink ears and a stammered excuse, the whole of King's Landing goes mad, because the Prince of Dragonstone's banners have been sighted in the bay.

Dyanna knows  _of_ Prince Rhaegel and Princess Baela more than she knows  _them,_ knows how they ended up married when there was an older brother, knows that the whole realm says Baela rules Dragonstone and leaves Rhaegel to his horses and his dreams, and knows that the Princess has already been making enquiries after a wife and a husband for her twin son and daughter, because she will not see them wed to one another.

They say that the Princess has been sending to Blackhaven, asking after the new Lord Dondarrion's little daughter for Prince Valarr, and that she has been known to say that she can think of no finer Queen than a Dondarrion woman.

Dyanna gathers all the rumours like jewels, and keeps them tucked away in the back of her mind just as she does her grandmother's earrings in her jewel casket. 

Prince Rhaegel and Princess Baela have a child each in their arms, little Valarr with his mother and little Aelora with her father, and they are the loveliest children Dyanna has ever seen, with their mother's dark hair and their father's lavender eyes and skin of a soft, warm brown. 

"Lady Dyanna," the Princess says, once she has made her way from the King to the Queen to Maekar and eventually to Dyanna. "It is such a great pleasure to have you here - might my ladies and I trouble you to host us in the Maidenvault? It was our home when we lived in the city, and sometimes I daresay we even miss it a little."

"I would be honoured, Your Grace," Dyanna says, flushed with pleasure that her infamous goodsister might approve of her. "Will the children come to?"

She follows, when Princess Baela begins to walk toward the waiting litters, scrambling to keep up - the Princess walks with long, even strides, like a man, and she is terribly tall while Dyanna is not, only level with Maekar's shoulder, and Maekar is not quite so tall as his sister, even though he is five-and-ten, near a man grown. 

"Ride with me to the Keep," the Princess invites, shifting her hold on little Valarr so she can hold the pale lilac silk aside to permit Dyanna entrance. "The others will be along after, but Valarr has been unwell, and I would put him in the grand maester's care as soon as I can."

Dyanna holds her tongue until the litter is in motion, until she thinks them safely out of earshot, before she can remain silent no longer.

"Does Maekar hate me, Princess?" she asks, wringing her hands. "He hardly even speaks to me anymore, and when we visited with one another before he  _always_ spoke with me, or at least, he let  _me_ speak, and I thought that you might know what I have done to offend him, since he trusts and esteems you so much-"

The Princess' laughter stops her. She has a full, throaty sort of laugh, a laugh not unlike Dyanna's own, which has felt out of place these past weeks, since her arrival and her introduction to court. 

"Oh, my poor little brother," she sighs, shaking her head and setting her beautiful earrings swinging. Little Valarr reaches up greedy, clutching hands, and she gently unwinds his fat fingers from the gold loops, with their emeralds and olivines and loops of warm cooper. "Maekar does not hate you, my lady, never that - for all his gruff manner, I sometimes doubt that my Maekar has it in him to hate anyone, really."

Dyanna listens, wide-eyed, as Baela explains that far from hating her, Maekar is almost afraid of her, because he is  _terrified_ that she might hate  _him,_ and Dyanna almost wishes to slap him for his silliness, just as she almost dares to wish that she might kiss him, just once, to show him that she does not hate him.

"He will be a good husband, Lady Dyanna," Baela Breakspear promises, reaching over her free hand to smooth Dyanna's hair, the bangles on her wrist jangling all the while. Dyanna wears similar bangles, although hers are all silver, with amethysts and moonstones, while the Princess' are gold and copper, with hints of garnets and rubies and the odd emerald, to draw out the green in her earrings, and the emerald in her nose.

"I worried that I would be too Dornish for him," Dyanna confesses, feeling almost as foolish as Maekar is. "But he loves you best of everyone in the world, and I think that you might be more Dornish than I am."

**viii.**

Baela sometimes feels that she lives in a dream.

"I have never failed you in anything, Father," she says, in the days following Maekar's long-awaited wedding, when the whole of King's Landing is pleased as punch for their lovesick lonely prince. Maekar's whole being has been transformed - or at least, so it seems to Baela. He is still somber and serious, still likely to take offence to the smallest of insults, but the moment Dyanna is within reach, something in him  _softens,_ and becomes beautiful.

And while Maekar has always been handsome, blessed with the Targaryen looks, he has never been beautiful. Together, he and Dyanna are surpassingly lovely, and Baela does not have it in her to be jealous of them.

"I agreed to wed Aerys, knowing how he hated me, how he planned to shame me," she says, sitting in a chair in her father's solar with her head tipped back. Father himself is holding a handkerchief tight to her nose, hoping to stem the bleeding, and he looks ashamed at the mention of Aerys' name. "When he near ruined me before the whole realm, I agreed to wait and wed Rhaegel, and I did not complain. I wed Rhaegel, and I left King's Landing for Dragonstone with him, and I have done everything in my power to make a King of him. I left Mother, and Maekar, and  _you_ , and while I was gone I gave you two fiercely healthy grandchildren, a boy and a girl. I have already agreed that my daughter, my little Aelora, will be sold to the Arryns, and I have already been searching out a wife for Valarr."

"I know all this, sweetling," her father says, sounding old and tired as he never has before, not with her. "You know that I know it, know that I love you for it."

"Then do this for me," she begs, tipping her head back a little further when the blood catches - she wishes, sometimes, that she could stop herself from fighting her brother's fights, but she cannot bear to hear women who think themselves witty disparaging Rhaegel, who is the sweetest soul in all the world, and who deserves only kindness. "Please, Father, you have never seen his worth but he  _is_ worthy. Let Maekar learn to lead men - he has no great charisma, but if you show people that he has your trust then his support will steady Rhaegel's crown, when the time comes.  _Please._ "

"You ask this out of concern for Rhaegel alone, then?"

 _I ask for my son,_ Baela thinks, aching and lonely and wishing for a different life, _I ask for my Valarr, and for any sons that might follow. I ask for the sake of future Targaryen girls, who should not have to wed their brothers. I ask for Mother, that she might fear a little less for all of us, and for Maekar, that he might have something good beyond Dyanna. I ask for Alys, who Rhaegel still loves, and I ask for Jena, that I might have her with me always._

 _I ask for me,_ she thinks,  _because Rhaegel sitting the throne with me as his consort is the closest I shall ever come to what should be my birthright._


	2. Baela Braveheart

**i.**

 

"I jousted with Daemon, once," Baela says, as if in a dream. There is silver in her dark hair now, and her lithe body has softened further and further with each child she bears Rhaegel. Aerys hates her a little less now than before, and has found himself sometimes touching the loose links of his chain as she always touched her bangles, when they were children.

Her bangles now are exchanged for hard arm-rings, tight above and below her elbows, studded with tiny amethysts and garnets to make dragons flying over the gold. With her hair held back by a circlet and heavy, beringed braids, an archer's single pauldron on her broad left shoulder, and a beautifully tooled quiver hanging from her hip, she seems half a dragon herself, wild with fury that Daemon has dared  _this._

"We were children," she goes on, tapping at the heavy ring above her wristguard, leather tinted deep purple-red to match her quiver and the border on her personal coat of arms. "Do you remember, Aerys, how you and I used to play at jousting? I would stand for Maekar and you for Rhaegel, and we would charge along the lists with pillows on our little lances-"

"Until you broke a lance in my side," he reminds her, "and might have killed me, if not for those pillows, and Father called you  _Breakspear_ in mock."

"It stuck," she says, and when she looks at him, there is something in her dark eyes that reminds him of their grandmother, gentle Naerys who carried too much on her skinny back. "I have been Baela Breakspear, and Baela Broken-Nose, and Baela the Bright, and Baela the Bitch. Rhaegel is simply Rhaegel, you simply Aerys, Maekar just Maekar."

"Why does this all worry you so, sister?" he asks, confused, wondering if perhaps he has misjudged Baela more than he ever realised.  _If only we were Dornish_ , he remembers, and yes, there was a longing there, but perhaps it was not all for a crown.

"I would have our people see me as something other than a, than a  _jape._ Jilted by her own brother, handed down the line because no one else would have me, for being so Dornish, for being so wild, for  _obviously_  being so slatternly, for-"

"No one would dare call you a slattern," Aerys cannot help but put in. "Maekar would take his mace to anyone who dared."

She laughs, then, sharp and high, not at all her usual laughter - but then, Aerys has not seen her for more than an hour at a time in almost ten years. How is he to know her usual laughter?

"We would have made one another desperately unhappy," she says. "I know that now, and knew it then, but at the time the shame of being jilted was too much. I thought I would never be able to forgive you for behaving so shamefully."

"But you have," Aerys agrees, "because you need me."

"You are better able to manage Uncle Bloodraven than anyone else, save Lady Seastar," Baela admits. "And I- that is,  _Rhaegel_ needs to be certain that Bloodraven holds to his part."

The Raven's Teeth will not shatter on this bite, Aerys knows this because he trusts his bastard uncle as he suspects few do, as Baela trusts their bastard aunt, the Star-of-the-Sea who is as likely a witch as Bloodraven is a wizard.

Aerys remembers watching Brynden and Shiera grow into themselves, into the legends of dread they have become, and is sad, somehow, in the same way that he is sad for all he might have had with his brothers and Baela, had he and Baela not hated one another so much.

"Do you remember Maekar gifting you as champion to Rhaegel, the day you earned your name?"

Baela's twice-broken nose wrinkles in confusion, but she nods.

"Maekar was certain that you would win the day for Rhaegel," Aerys says, touching her hand, a gesture of comfort and reassurance which takes them both by surprise. "Tell Rhaegel that I am just as certain of Brynden Rivers, sister. Tell him the chained prince will ensure Bloodraven's loyalty, if such encouragement is even needed."

Baela's smile is as bright as the sun against her wind-burned cheeks, and Aerys almost does not hate her at all, just then.

**ii.**

Rhaegel covers Baela's hand on his shoulder with his own fingers, comforted by the familiar touch, by the ever-present weight of her presence at his side.

He does not love her as a man ought a wife, but he has never ceased to love her fiercely as his sister, to see her worth and her strength, and he is glad to give her this. Baela's mind is as sharp as their mother's, as Father's or Uncle Maron's, sharper in some ways than Aerys' and quicker to adapt than Maekar's, but she is a woman, and so no one will wish to hear her.

So she speaks through him. 

He is glad of it for more than just her sake - Rhaegel has never known what to say when pushed before a crowd, but Baela puts her clever words in his able mouth and makes a decent sort of Crown Prince out of him, or at least a decent sort of puppet. He supposes that most of his generals know well enough that his battle plans come from a source other than his own mind, but neither Baela nor Maekar press for acknowledgement, and he wonders at that, when he has a moment to spare. 

"What Prince Rhaegel means, my lords," Baela says, casting out a hand so that her bejewelled arm-rings shattering candlelight across the maps on the war table, "is that we not only  _can_ win this battle, but that we  _must."_

They like her, like her command of them, even if they deny her true authority because of her sex, but Rhaegel is glad that they at least give her true respect. He would hate to see them flogged for doing otherwise, but he would have no choice.

When they are alone, and her hand is still warm under his on his shoulder, Rhaegel removes his circlet and lets his other hand rest on his helm. It is an elegant thing, black plate chased with Baela's purple-red, and Rhaegel hates wearing it, because he is no warrior.

"Sometimes," he says, turning his head to look her in the eye, "I wish that you were the prince, and I your sister - at least then we would have a man fit to lead our armies."

"You may not be a warrior," she says, and he knows that she is tired of retreading this same ground a thousand times a day, "but you are well loved, brother, and respected - let Maekar hold the line, lead the charge toward him and then let the brothers of the Kingsguard help you fall back without losing honour."

"Ah, Baela," he sighs, tugging her forward and into the seat beside him, "how am I to retreat from a battlefield with any honour left?"

"Better lose your honour than your life," she says fiercely, Nymeria herself with that leather pauldron and those shining gold rings braided into her hair. "I would not be without you now, Rhaegel - what is between us may not be what is between Mother and Father, or Maekar and Dyanna, but our life is good, is it not? Our children are beautiful, the people in our lands happy, and were it not for Daemon's  _outrageous_ -"

"I love you as well, sister," Rhaegel says, before her anger can overcome her again. "As well as either of us can love the other, we do. I know that. But you must know that no man in the Seven Kingdoms will follow a King who is known to have fled the field of battle."

"I will  _make_ them respect you," she says, clasping his hands so tight that her rings dig into his fingers. "They will never dare to defy me in this, Rhaegel, and Maekar's support will only make sure of it."

He kisses her straining knuckles, and nods, and the next day he rides into battle.

He may not be a great warrior, may only just know one end of a sword from the other, but that will not stop him - especially not when he has no intention of fighting with a sword.

He rests the butt of his spear in his stirrup, remembers the old master of arms on Dragonstone roaring that jousting was  _two-thirds horsemanship, one-third pure bloody luck!_ and lets out a breath.

Rhaegel is as Dornish as Baela, even if he does not look it. His personal company are all Dornishmen, all bearing shields and spears, all riding fast, agile horses. Ser Symon, who rides with him in Kingsguard white, is a Santagar, and a cousin of Mother's through  _her_ mother. 

Perhaps, by fighting Daemon accursed Blackfyre as himself, rather than the man Baela might have been in another world, Rhaegel can return to her with both life and honour intact.

He would so hate to disappoint her.

**iii.**

Maekar is knee-deep in traitor's blood when he hears the cries.

He doesn't know what they are saying - they are too indistinct, too far away to be heard over the roar of blood and battle in his ears, but he understands when pale rain begins to fall.

_The Raven's Teeth,_ he thinks,  _Lord Bloodraven has done his work._

Lord Bloodraven is only a year Maekar's senior, but something in his demeanour makes an ancient of him. Dyanna is frightened of him, almost as much as she is of Bittersteel, but Maekar knows his uncle too well to be truly  _scared_ of him. 

The weight on his lines seems to ease more than it should have from a single volley of arrows, and he wonders at that - Rhaegel lost his mind and took up a spear such as Uncle Moran wields, and took an injury such as was to be expected by Rhaegel on a battlefield, and morale had dropped enough for the traitors to gain some ground against Baela's strategy, but now...

Even with the losses from Bloodraven's infamous archers, the rebels ought to be stronger than they are, unless-

The cries solidify into " _The red dragon! For Daeron!"_ and Maekar knows who must be behind it all.

Baela has done something, and gods bless her but it has  _worked._

It is not until later, after the rally of the royal armies has been ascribed to Daemon Blackfyre's fall to the Raven's Teeth, that Maekar finally finds his sister. She is with Rhaegel, of course, sewing his torn thigh and hip with her own hands while he sleeps under the poppy, attended only by Aerys in maester grey-and-chain. 

And there are bandages wrapped over her right arm, such as could only have come from being  _in battle._

"Do not scowl so, little brother," she says, rueful and blushing already - her pauldron is nowhere to be seen, her arm-rings replaced once more by rushing bangles that jingle softly with each stitch, and there is a bright scarlet ruby in her nose. That Baela has given up her warrior-queen outfits seems more a sign of victory than anything he has seen thus far, but he does not say so, because he is furious with Gawyn Hightower for allowing her into the fray, and furious with her for going. "I was only a little on the field, and Uncle was with me all the while."

"She rode with the Raven's Teeth," Aerys says, rolling his eyes, "and has improved her opinion of Bloodraven somewhat."

Baela's eyes are mad, but they are always half-mad at least, so Maekar pays that no more mind than the quirk of her grin. Instead, he looks at her hands, and only when he sees that they are steady and sure does he allow himself a smile.

"Next I will hear that an arrow tied about with a purple ribbon felled Daemon," he teases, or as close as he ever comes to teasing. 

Baela flushes even harder now, and shakes her head.

"I checked already," she tells him, tugging hard at the thick black thread that stands so stark against the red and white of Rhaegel's blood and skin. "Aerys and I went with Bloodraven to make sure that it truly was Daemon who was slain, and the arrow was fletched with raven's feathers. Not mine."

He wonders, briefly, if the rumours are true and that Daemon's boys were killed with him, and hopes for Baela's sake that she did not loose the arrow that killed either twin. 

"I went only to rally our men," she admits. "I can shoot a deer, but I have not been trained for battle - I carried my bow, and shot in the right direction, but I don't think I hit a single thing. It was simply... An act."

Aerys scoffs, and Baela scowls, and Maekar feels ten years old again, until he begins to tip sideways from his stool - Rhaegel was not the only one to take an injury in the field, it would seem.

**iv.**

Jena waits with the children on the dock when the red dragon appears, and she feels almost sick with fear that this is one battle Baela will have lost.

Jena has seen her princess through childbirth and the quiet, underhanded war of the court, through the particular difficulties that arise in a marriage between a brother and a sister, through all kinds of little miseries, but this is no little thing. This is a  _war_ , and-

Baela appears at the top of the gangplank, her arm in a sling but her face alight with a smile, and she runs to the children, who flock to her in a screaming mass of delight, even little Meria who can barely walk and surely does not remember the parents who were gone so close after her birth.

Baela's skin has been burned even darker brown, and the silver in her hair seems more pronounced, as if it, too, has been picked out by the sun. She kisses the children, each of them once and then again and then a third time, as if she is afraid they will disappear from her if she does not make absolutely certain that they are real. She laughs with them, tears running down her face as she touches each of them, stroking black hair and silver with equal tenderness, gathering Meria up and against her hip as she straightens and rises to her feet.

"We will not be here long," she calls to the assembled household, "but will be departing for King's Landing in three days. In the meantime, my husband and I would like to express our immense gratitude to all of you for ensuring the safety of our children, and apologise for the imposition of having both our brothers and our uncle to stay these few days, before we leave for court."

And sure enough, there is thin, cruel Aerys, who jilted Baela as only a madman could, tucked under Prince Rhaegel's arm, and there is sharp Maekar, leaning on a crutch but under Prince Rhaegel's other arm, and between them all they somehow shuffle sideways down the plank to the dock, and Rhaegel insists on his brothers lowering him to the ground so that he might repeat Baela's show of affection to the children. 

Brynden Rivers lingers behind them, revealed in the shadows by his pale, pale hair, but Jena pays him no mind. She has no patience for the mystique the Great Bastards think they possess, and cares only that Baela is well, and Rhaegel with her.

Aelora and Valarr, the twins, push aside their uncles so that they might support their father, and despite the obvious agony of bearing his own weight, Prince Rhaegel says nothing, and lets them aid him as far as the waiting litter - Jena had ordered it for Baela, thinking that her lady might have need of it, but Baela is already walking for the keep herself, the younger children running about her in delight and Meria still balanced on her hip. 

"Thank you, Lady Jena," Prince Maekar says, gruff and uncomfortable. "That you were here with the children was a source of great comfort to my sister, I know. I am... Grateful to you, for the happiness your company gives her."

Were it not for the tell-tale shine of dreamwine in Prince Maekar's eyes, Jena would be shocked, but men always speak odd things when drugged, so she pays it no mind.

"Yes, well, Your Highness," she says, drawing him toward the litter, "I am her principal lady-in-waiting, and it is my duty to do all in my power to see the Princess happy. I am only glad that I have some success in my duties."

Baela is easy to keep happy, in truth - argue with her when she wants to talk about politics and gossip, which are so often one and the same; do not lie and tell her that she looks lovelier than Aelinor Penrose or whoever is hailed as the greatest beauty in the realm this week; cherish her children, and respect her brothers and parents; and most of all, be truthful with her, for few things seem to ever hurt the Princess, save for lies.

Jena follows the litter in silence, because once-Prince Aerys keeps pace with her, and she does not know how she is to speak with him without decrying him for a fool, for none but a fool would  _ever_ give Baela up.

She says as much later, when she is helping Baela wash her masses of hair, when it is just the two of them, and Baela laughs and laughs.

"Oh, Jena," she sighs, when at last she is done, leaning her head back against Jena's arm on the rim of her bathtub. "Had Aerys been my husband, we might never have had this life - and for that, I am glad that he never wanted me. I cannot imagine ever living a life other than this."

Jena allows her a single kiss, because she is even angrier than Prince Maekar that Baela thought it acceptable to venture onto the field of battle but she is also painfully grateful to have Baela  _home_ , and so she knows that her anger will not last long.

"I am sorry for worrying you so," Baela says, still chasing after another kiss, so Jena dumps a jug of water over her head and laughs to see the Princess splutter. "I mean it, Jena! I did not mean to cause you such pain and grief. You know that I would not wish to hurt you, not ever."

Jena did know it, but that did not make it any easier for them. Wedding her to kind, silly Tommen had made her Lady of Crackclaw Point and given her a husband who did not question the amount of time she spent with Baela, and had given her her beautiful son, little Matarys, with his fine, fair hair and wide, dark eyes.

"I know, Princess," Jena says, setting back to work, rinsing the suds and soap from Baela's lovely hair. "I know."

**v.**

"If I did not know that you were behind your own appearance on the field," Daeron says, clasping Baela as tight to him as he can, burning with the horror of what might have been, had Bittersteel noticed her before Daemon fell, "I would have all three of your brothers flayed, and my brother, too."

Even Brynden has the sense to look a little cowed, although Daeron knows well that not a one of them truly fears his retribution - he has always used them as his strong arms, after all, Bryden and Maekar, and Aerys is beyond censure behind that chain of his, and Rhaegel, well, everyone knows that Baela rules Rhaegel even more completely than she does Dragonstone.

"You are not badly hurt, though?" he asks, drawing away just enough to look her in the face. With her hair tumbled loose around her face and the bridge of her nose burned and shining, she is more like Mariah than ever, and the thought of her loss sears through Daeron once more - Mariah notices, presses her hand to the unevenness of his spine, and presses the other hand to Baela's blushing cheek.

"Only my arm, Papa," she promises him. "Rhaegel is the worst off of us, or Uncle - Aerys worries that Rhaegel may not regain the use of his leg, and Uncle's eye is gone for good, even the children could see that."

"Injuries expected of men in the field," Mariah says sternly, but Daeron hears the shake in her low voice. "When we allowed you to go with Rhaegel, to support him, we did not expect to see  _you_ return with battlescars, sweetling."

Maekar shuffles behind Baela, looking both furious and ashamed, because he escaped the battle without anything more than bruises and a nasty split lip, and because he has always held Baela's physical safety as his personal responsibility. Daeron wishes he had words for his strange, serious son, so alien to his own ways, to tell Maekar how  _proud_ he is of all that he has done to preserve their House, and at so young an age, too, but words always stick in his throat when he tries to give them to Maekar, who always belonged to Baela before any other, until his Dyanna came along and enchanted him.

"You have all done so well," he says, turning Baela so he can fit her under his arm, between himself and Mariah, so he can see the others. "You have all done House Targaryen and the realm proud, boys."

They are no  _boys_ \- Maekar is the youngest of them, a man of one-and-twenty with two sons of his own, and a third on the way - but they are his, have been his since they each were born, and after Mariah and Baela, they are the dearest things to him in all the world.

Even Brynden, in his own funny way.

Later, when it is just himself and Mariah, he allows himself to weep. Her hair curtains them both when she wraps herself around him in their bed, hides his tears from any who might dare to look, and he clings to her just as tight as he did to Baela earlier in the day. 

"She is so strong," Mariah says soothingly, stroking his hair and neck and aching shoulders with her firm hands, just as she has always done when he is overwhelmed, when he needs comfort. "She can withstand anything in the world, my love, you know that - she has withstood being born a woman in a realm that denies her what is rightfully hers, has she not? What else can the gods impose on her, beyond that?"

Mariah means it teasingly, he knows, because she can imagine the same multitude of terrible things befalling Baela as he can, but it is enough to break him from the agony of dreaming a world without his sweet girl in it. Bad enough that she is away at Dragonstone half the time, bad enough that the Maidenvault stands once more empty, without Baela and her wild ladies to fill it with laughter and schemes, bad enough that Mariah has only her own women for company in the evenings and none of Baela's japes and considerations.

"I miss her as well, love," Mariah says, "and I would miss her then, too, just as much as you would. But she is yet with us, and will be with us a long while yet."

**vi.**

"You ought to have told your father about this," Mariah says mildly, balanced on the corner of Maekar and Dyanna's bed, watching Dyanna sew her husband's back shut again. "He nearly lost his life when you fainted on the yard."

"I did not  _faint,_ " Maekar says, exasperated and mortified in equal measure. "I- I became unwell."

"You fainted," Dyanna says, nimble as a mountain goat despite the massive swell of her belly. " _I_ nearly lost  _my_ life, husband - is that a sufficient threat to make you see a maester, before this festers?"

A sliver of a sword wound on his shoulder, burned in violent Targaryen scarlet across the silver of his skin, has been Maekar's secret in the month since they all returned from war with their uncle, shared only with Dyanna, who is obviously the source of the sharply pink lines scored over his shoulder blades.

"It will not fester," Maekar grumbles. "I bathe too often for that, and like my water too hot. It will be fine, as soon as it knits."

"It won't knit if you don't take a week off from swinging your mace," Dyanna nips back, her needle sinking and rising as if there is nothing strange about using it to darn her husband's skin instead of his socks. "I insist, for fear of my health. The stress of watching you endanger your health will endanger mine, Maekar, I swear it to you."

Maekar has a reputation for a cold heart, an unfeeling nature, but Mariah is moved almost to pain by the genuine distress that floods his face at the thought of his actions causing Dyanna harm - confusing though so many find it, there is strong, genuine love between her youngest and his lady, and she is so glad that at least one of her brood has found true happiness.

"Baela knows," he says, "and my brothers. I was with them when I noticed I was injured - Baela was sewing Rhaegel back together on one cot, and Aerys sewed me on the other."

Dyanna's mouth thins, then her eyes, and she smacks him about the ears with the back of her hand.

"Then mayhaps, my love," she says, "you ought to have mentioned it to your mother and father, no?"

Mariah does not say that Baela had confided in her, only days after their return. Baela confided so much in those few days, more than she had confided in Mariah in years. She told of how much it scared her, to be on the field, but how much more frightening it had been to push into Rhaegel's tent and see him prone on his cot, with Aerys bloody to the elbows trying to save him. How much it had scared her to see her own blood, red-black like a Targaryen standard in the midst of the fighting, but how much worse it had been to see Maekar's, terrifying sheets of blood pouring across his back once Aerys stripped their little brother of plate and padding and shirt. 

Of how she had been scared right until she had seen Jena Celtigar, once Dondarrion, waiting on the dock for her, with her children and Jena's own. Of how going to bed with Rhaegel frightens them both, but they both know that it is best for them to have a large family, to shore up as many alliances as possible, and so they have found ways to work around his injuries even since their return. 

Mariah hates how much is expected of her loves, sometimes, even though she knows that it is no more than is expected of any other royal child before them. Still, Baela is only twenty-six, so young to have a family of four and the grey hair of a grandmother, Rhaegel twenty-two, and Mariah sometimes wonders if it is right to leave them alone to their worries, out on Dragonstone.

**vii.**

"I am so happy for you, sister," Dyanna says, and she truly means it - Baela's last pregnancy ended in miscarriage, and the maesters said it had been inevitable. A babe conceived so soon after the strain the Princess inflicted on herself by taking the field would never survive, they were sure, but this babe, this one will live, and will thrive. Baela has done her best to ensure that by not even daring to reveal its existence until her belly had grown to exposure under her soft Dornish gowns, and Dyanna admires her daring. She had not dared to hide any of her pregnancies, sure that Bloodraven's spies would find her truth before she was ready to share and bring it to the King, who would be  _hurt._

But then, Baela can do as she pleases without any great censure from the King, and the whole court knows it. What other man would have reacted to his daughter jousting by naming her  _Breakspear_ instead of scolding her, after all?

"I am happy as well," Baela confesses, as though it is some great secret that Baela adores her children and dotes on them all to the point of spoiling them. "I think that this child will help Rhaegel, too."

The Prince has been despondent these last months, since he was confined to his wheelchair for what seems to be the time being, and even the upcoming celebrations for the anniversary of the victory at Redgrass Field have done nothing to lift his usually light spirits.

"He will surely be delighted," Dyanna agrees, linking her arm through Baela's and leaning her head on her goodsister's shoulder. "You both deserve such a happiness, Baela, you truly do."

Baela leans over to kiss Dyanna's temple, just as she would Maekar's, and Dyanna swells with pride - Baela Braveheart likes all, they say, but loves just a few, and such an open, unthinking sign of affection must mean that Dyanna is one of the few.

"Enough, Valarr," Baela calls mildly to her son, tallest of the children by a good measure and the only one who will stand up to Aerion, much to Dyanna's annoyance - she was younger than her brother, but she fought tooth and nail with Ultor whenever the occasion called for it. Daeron is their eldest, Maekar's heir, but he seems only too ready to allow Aerion to bully him and best him, and she wishes there were some way for her to toughen him up. "Be kind to your cousin, my love."

Lady Celtigar, sitting under a parasol on Baela's other side, laughs into her cup of sweet lemonwater, and says nothing. Dyanna likes Lady Jena, more or less, and has learned to think on the  _more_ rather than the  _less_ , because Jena comes with Baela whether you like her or not.

"Does it ever hurt?" Dyanna asks, tracing her fingertip over the livid scar on Baela's arm - a rogue blade that cut her right to the bone, a wound she ignored until she was sure Prince Rhaegel was safely stitched closed, or so Maekar says - and tipping her head back to watch Baela's face. "Maekar's scars sometimes ache in the cold, he says."

"Maekar is fibbing," Baela says absently, still watching the children. "He is hardly more than a boy, and too young for such aches and pains - the skin pulls a little sometimes, nothing more. I hardly think on it, to tell the truth."

Dyanna does not call Baela on the lie, even though she knows it is there. Baela often swaps her loose bangles for firm arm rings now, rings which cover the scarring, and wears her long hair swept down over one shoulder so it obscures the scarring even more, but in that Dyanna does not blame her. Dyanna's gowns have become much more modest since having her boys, after all, the necklines higher to hide more of her softened breasts, traced as they are all over with silver lines. Maekar, when he is drunk, traces those lines with his tongue and says they are like the tails of falling stars across her skin, but only when he is  _very_ drunk.

**viii.**

Baela has seen war. She has been hated, and wanted by men she would never want in return. She has seen pain and despair and grief, seen her brave, broken grandmother, seen all kinds of things that ought to have shaken fear from her soul.

But the birthing bed frightens Baela more than anything else in the whole of the world.

A year and a half to the day after her first and last battle, Baela's pains begin, and her and Rhaegel's fifth child to make it this far begins their fight to enter the world. For the first time, she is at King's Landing, in the Red Keep, instead of on Dragonstone, but at least she has all her ladies with her - Jena sits by her right hand, Dyanna at her left, and Mother settles behind her on the bed, settling Baela between her legs and bearing her weight against her chest.

The maesters think that it is twins, again. Baela hopes that they are wrong, because while she adores her twins - and she does, gods but she loves her children so much it aches, every one of them - birthing Aelora near killed her, both in blood and pain, because she came second and was such a bigger babe than Valarr.

She and Rhaegel have chosen two names each, just to be safe. Gael and Jaehaerys, Saera and Aeryn, and Baela prays to her uncertain gods that they will need only one name of the four.

"It has never hurt this much before," she whispers to Mother, who shushes her and smooths her hair and holds her tight, as if she can hold Baela in this life even if things do go badly."

And it does go badly - it lasts too long, far too long, and the pain becomes so terrible that Jena and Laena together force poppy's milk past her lips, and Dyanna sings hymns to the Mother in her high, clear voice, and she can hear voices outside the doors, she thinks, men arguing, and she wonders if that means that she is dying, because she cannot think why else the men would come so close to something that frightens them so much.

The doors slamming open and shut in quick succession startles even Baela, fogged by poppy as she is, and she begins to weep when she opens her eyes to find one blue and one green looking back at her.

"Surely you aren't giving up?" Shiera chides, all teasing smiles and twinkling winks as she retreats just far enough to unroll a long strip of leather, revealing an army of shining steel tools. "Surely Baela Braveheart, who twice fought Daemon Blackfyre and won, is not afraid of  _childbirth!"_

"Twice?" Dyanna asks, and Shiera laughs, as if she is not tying her beautiful hair back from her beautiful face with a strip of leather, as though she is not shoving Baela's legs apart and peering intently at her nethers. "When else did the Princess fight Daemon Blackfyre?"

"Oh, we were all children here together, didn't you know?" Shiera asks, rolling back her embroidered sleeves and tucking the length of Baela's shift back over her thighs. "Baela used joust Aerys, and one day, Daemon decided to teach her a lesson - this was before the King named her Breakspear, you understand, back when he was just Prince of Dragonstone, just our odd brother."

Baela screams when Shiera's steel tools flash, and Shiera stuffs her mouth with a silken gag in the shade of purple they both used wear so often as girls, strokes her cheek in apology, and sets back to work.

"Daemon had all kinds of ideas, you see," Shiera says, beckoning Laena and another of the ladies - Aunt Daenerys, Baela recognises through her tears - to hold Baela's thrashing legs. "He thought us all far too swayed by Mariah's presence, far too  _Dornish,_ and thought making an example of Baela would teach us all our places."

"And did it?" Jena asks, pressing a rare public kiss to the rise of Baela's cheekbone, as a comfort. "I cannot imagine that it did."

"Well," Shiera says, setting aside her steel tools and grinning to Jena and Dyanna, before her face falls in apology when she turns to Baela, once more meeting her eyes. "Our Baela could have been Breakspear from that day, if her father had ever known of it, because it was Daemon that ended on his arse in the muck, wasn't it, Braveheart?"

Baela somehow remains awake, despite the agony, and her tears are of relief as much as pain when Shiera tugs not one but  _two_ healthy, screaming babes from her body, and she is almost laughing at the madness of the Great Bastards by the time Shiera finishes stitching her cunt back together.

"There now, Braveheart," Shiera says, tucking herself against Baela's side once she and the bed are changed and the babes are swaddled and laid in her arms, "I knew you'd survive this."

"You've always known all the best secrets, Seastar," Baela says, voice hoarse, and she kisses Shiera's cheek and promises to see her aunt more - they and Daenerys were so close as girls, after all.

Rhaegel, later, is thrilled by Gael and Saera, their newest girls, to go with Aelora and Rhaenys and Meria, and Baela knows that they will have to try again, that they will have to give Valarr a brother, but for now she is tired and aching, and she thinks that mayhaps, they might take a rest, just for a little while.


	3. Baela Broken-Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more AU thingy in that Dyanna Dayne is still alive by now, because I say so. Why are the mothers always dead, GRRM? Why are the mothers _always_ dead?

**i.**

"You are a chronicler, little brother," Baela says, a circlet of gold and amethysts and rubies highlighting the redness of her eyes and the bruised-in shadows beneath them. "Tell me, is there a precedent for what I must do? Can the small council prevent it?"

Aerys does not know, in truth, and so he remains where he is, sitting while Baela kneels. Father looks well, on his bier, brow smooth of concern for once, the whole arranged to accommodate his uneven spine and crooked shoulders so that here, for this last time, he seems as upright as ever Daemon Blackfyre was.

Baela has been weeping since Aerys arrived from Oldtown, and before it, too, if her daughters are to be believed. This sickness has caused so much grief, has taken so many from this life, and Baela has not been spared. 

Mother is on Baela's other side, veiled in sheer black silk and so far beyond grief that she cannot even summon tears, and Aerys does not know which of them he feels for more.

Rhaegel and Maekar are only a few feet away, Maekar's hands on Rhaegel's thin shoulders, Rhaegel's tear-streaked face heavy with concern and concentration both. Aerys wonders where Maekar's wife is, where the children are, who is watching them all now that the gods have so obviously forsaken them.

Father, Valarr, Saera, Rhae. The King, Rhaegel's heir, and the youngest of each family. Aerys wishes he could have been here, for Mother, for Rhaegel and Baela, for Maekar and his Dyanna, because while Aerys does not understand their pain he does understand grief, and shares in it.

And because he is ashamed, because the Citadel did not do more to stop this sickness.

Mother comes to him, the day after the funerals, while he is setting his rooms to rights - the Citadel sent him here in hopes of keeping the retribution of the royal family for their failure to find any sort of succour for the sickness at bay, and while he understands it, Aerys hates that even in this his blood is more important than his abilities or desires. Firstborn-for-the-throne, Prince Maester turned to Grand Maester, as if having him near will quell his mother's rage and grief.

"Your brother will never seek to strike against the Citadel," she tells him, hair more silver than black and hands trembling with tiredness. "Your sister may wish it, but that is a mother's grief speaking, and she will calm some, and see sense."

Aerys does not doubt that losing two of her beloved children has stripped Baela of her sense, but he wonders if she will ever trust anyone in a maester's chain again. He knows, from Rhaegel's letters, that she has not trusted her own care or that of her girls to a maester in years, since Gael and Saera were born under Shiera Seastar's hands, and he cannot but believe that this will only serve to break whatever little faith she had left in his order.

"My being here will not help her to do so," he points out. He and Baela may have made their peace, more or less, after the Blackfyre Rebellion, but they still dislike one another, the hatred beaten too deep into their souls for it to ever be fully dissolved. She still thinks him weak for abandoning his duty to the realm, still hates him for shaming her, and he still thinks her a fool for not using her influence over Father to escape their marriage before he  _had_ to run, still hates her for being everything the realm wanted in a Crown Prince, short of male. 

Still, it was to him that she turned for advice about this plan of hers. Mayhap losing Valarr and Saera has not driven her quite so mad as Mother seems to suspect. 

"No," Mother admits, "but it may distract her for long enough that she might work through her grief, and come out the other side."

**ii.**

"How am I to be King, Baela?" he asks her, in what is now his solar. Gael has cried herself all the way to fitful sleep with her head in his lap, and the older girls are dozing on the pillows Baela had brought in for them, so she can keep them close. Aelora is the exception, still in the Reach with her new husband, still in danger from the sickness, but in unrelated agonies, according to the Tyrell boy's letters, over Valarr's death.

Rhaegel is in agonies, too, but he cannot think of it, because to do so will surely drive him mad, madder even than everyone already thinks him.

"With all of us behind you," she says, stroking Meria's black hair and threading her fingers through Rhaenys' silver. "With the support of House Targaryen, and those loyal to us. With-"

He does not know what else he will have with him as King, and does not care, because Gael stirs in his lap at the sound of Baela's voice, and rises to sitting without saying a word.

"I feel as though I am missing my right arm," she says at last, after they have watched her for a small forever, voice barely a breath, and Rhaegel wishes he knew her pain, so that he might understand and better sooth it. Shiera and Brynden both have offered potions and charms to help Gael, have offered the same to Maekar's Daella, who has not slept since her sister's death, but both girls refuse anything that might help them, just as Rhaegel is sure Aelora in Highgarden does.

"I ought to have been the one to die," Gael goes on, stopping Rhaegel's heart in his chest. He has always held Gael as his father held Baela, and the thought of a world without her in it is almost more than he can bear. "Saera only wanted to be a septa, where I am dangerous, because I wish to marry and might have sons."

Rhaegel does not know what to tell her, because it is true. Just as Maekar's Aemon has been encouraged in his fledgling dreams of forging a maester's chain, so was Saera encouraged in her considering a septa's veil.  _Too many dragons,_ Father often said, and while Rhaegel does not see how there could be any danger in having their children all close by, Baela and Mother both seemed to agree, even if they never seemed to like it.

"You must never wish such a thing," Baela says, as fierce as she can manage with Rhaenys and Meria sleepy-eyed under her arms. "Never, my love, never ever - I could not bear to lose another one of you, do you understand? You must promise me, Gael, promise me that you will never think such a terrible thing again, sweetling."

All three girls are wide awake now, and look as shocked as Rhaegel feels - where is Baela's legendary control, her careful poise? She looks as old as Mother, just now, and Rhaegel wonders if there is not something more than grief breaking her heart.

"You three," she says, voice shaking as he has never heard, "and Aelora, you are all the good I have left in the world, and I could not bear to be without you. Promise me that you will not take your leave, my girls. Promise me."

Jena appears from nowhere, only newly arrived from Claw Isle, where she hid away from the sickness, and wraps her arms over Baela's shoulders in comfort. Baela does not take her own arms from around the girls, but she tips her head back against Jena, hiding her face against Lady Celtigar's neck as she begins to weep.

"You will be King," she says, just as Gael settles down in Rhaegel's lap once more, "with a different Queen than me."

**iii.**

Dyanna has slept with Daella in her arms every night since Rhae's death, and Maekar has had half a mind to grab Aemon and Aegon and drag them into the room as well. As it is, he has the boys set up on cots in his solar, and has not been able to sleep more than an hour at a time even with Dyanna and Daelle beside him, Daella curled to Dyanna's chest and Dyanna curled to his.

Her only comforts are Gael and Aelora, Baela's girls who know what it is to have lost half of themselves, as she has. Aelora has her Tyrell husband, a pretty boy with a gentle manner, and a belly swollen with what she insists is a boy, a boy she insists will be named in Valarr's honour, and Gael has the faith that was so dear to Saera, which makes her feel closer to her sister, but Daella has only their shared losses, and what little echoes of Rhae she can find in their family.

So sometimes, she is hidden in Dyanna's skirts, hiding there like a babe of two rather than a girl of ten, so she need not face anyone who might offer her false sympathies. Other times she clings to Maekar with a determination that surprises him, sitting by his side at small council meetings with a serious little face and her dolly clasped firmly in her lap. It is unhealthy for her, though, to spend so much time with her parents, with adults, and while it was always Rhae who was more ready to play with the other children, while Daella has more of Maekar's nature and his difficulty in finding friends, he encourages her to try, and encourages the boys to help her.

Aemon is near a man, though, and thinking more seriously than ever about leaving for the Citadel, and Aegon has squired for that thrice-accursed hedge knight from Ashford - what a  _mess_ that had been, had it not been for Baela and Rhaegel who knows what might have happened - for so long that he is half a peasant and less than half a prince, and runs a little wild. They are good with her, Aemon in particular, and do not object to her trailing them by the hand or sitting on the edge of the practice yard, with her dolly whose hair has been braided as Rhae's always was in her lap. 

Daeron writes that she ought to come to Summerhall, to him, but Aerion is yet under guard at Summerhall, and Maekar does not trust him near Daella as she is now. Daeron means well, but he will have enough on his mind, what with Valarr's widow already on her way there to marry him, and does not need his little sister as an added burden.

And besides, Daeron can hardly look after himself, never mind Daella.

Baela asks after Daella often, as though she does not have two daughters herself who are next to ghosts, as if she herself is not eaten away by grief. They walk together in the gardens as often as he can make time, as often as he dares to leave the small council to Bloodraven alone, and he wishes he had more time for her - Rhaegel is already shaking under the weight of his crown, though, and while Maekar has never found a way to fully trust any one of his grandfather's bastards fully, it has fallen to him and Brynden Rivers to rule in Rhaegel's name as his brother falls deeper and deeper into the sweetest sort of madness. 

Which is what makes this plan of Baela's all the more foolish.

"I cannot abide by this," he warns her, alarmed by how frail her arm is around his own but angry enough with her that he says nothing. "You know how this will damage the stability of the realm-"

"I will still support Rhaegel, Maekar," she says evenly, "but I cannot be his Queen. He needs an heir, and I cannot give him that. My womb has been shut ever since Shiera stitched my nethers back together, and everyone knows it."

"He has heirs," Maekar insists, thinking of the babe in Aelora's belly, of the tiny son Rhaenys presented to her Velaryon husband only a month ago. "He has your girls, and-"

"And you," Baela agrees. "I have heard the rumours, Maekar, that Rhaegel will name you his heir - people think you very like our great-grandfather, for all that there are next to none who really remember him anymore. Stern and law-abiding and terrifyingly just, but capable. They wish for a capable King more than anything."

"And yet you seek a path which will leave them with a  _child_ King, who will be under a regency for years if Rhaegel dies!"

"Under your regency, if you will do this for me," Baela says. "And only after a smooth succession such as we will not see if Rhaegel dies without a direct male heir. If he marries another and dies before their child reaches its maturity, then you can be regent and no one will think a thing of it, but if Rhaegel were to drop dead in the morning, what are we to do? Name a child yet unborn as King because he is the son of Rhaegel's eldest daughter, and hope we are not choked by Tyrell roses by the end of the month? Or perhaps tear Rhaenys and her little lad away from the peace of Driftmark, where they are safe, and away from all this intrigue and malice? No, I will not have it. This is what is best, Maekar - I believe that you would be a good King, but there is too much chance for the Blackfyres to insert themselves if we allow things to come to a Great Council, and I could not bear that."

Maekar could not bear it either, but he still cannot believe that Baela thinks this best. 

"Who, then?" he asks. "Who would you see Rhaegel wed? There are girls of most of the Great Houses, and the likes of the Hightowers doubtless have half a dozen daughters and granddaughters who would jump at the chance-"

"Alys Arryn," Baela says, "was widowed in the Sickness, and is only thirty or thirty-one, I cannot remember which. She would make a fine wife for him, I think. Daughter of House Arryn and mother to the new Lord Royce? A fine wife. A fine ally for us to have."

And the woman Rhaegel has loved from boyhood, as far as he is capable of such things. Maekar sometimes wonders at Baela, sometimes fears that she sees politics before she sees people, but here, she has made the politics fit around the people so that Rhaegel might have some happiness, and he is proud of her for it.

Even so-

"You are still the rightful Queen, though," he presses, and draws to a sharp halt when she whirls in front of him and he sees the tears in her eyes for the first time.

"I cannot give him a male heir, Maekar," she says, voice thin and high and alien. "Even if I were physically capable, even if I were not too old and closed off anyways, I could not bear to do it! The thought of carrying another boy under my heart, knowing that everyone would see him as a replacement for Valarr, for  _my son-"_

Oh, and Maekar feels like the worst sort of villain now. Rhaegel and Baela may have lost the same children, just as Rhae was as much Maekar's as Dyanna's, but it was Baela who carried both Valarr and Saera in her own body, and to have even thought to ask her to bring forth another child to fill their absences seems impossibly cruel, now that he sees it.

Could he ever ask if of Dyanna, to give him another daughter, to take Rhae's seat at their table, to sleep in the empty little bed opposite Daella's in their shared chambers, to tease smiles from his serious little girl? Never, not even if the gods themselves came down from the heavens and demanded it of him, and he cannot but be ashamed that they all saw fit to ask the same of Baela.

"I am sorry," he says, gathering her close as he has not since before he and Dyanna wed, since he was just a boy. He is far taller than her now, and twice as broad across the shoulders, but still he takes comfort in the jingle of her bangles and the soft whisper of her silks and hair. "My support is yours, Baela, my sword, my shield-"

"My sworn word," she finishes for him, echoing the teasing vows she used swear to him every time she and Aerys played at jousting when they were children. "Thank you, Maekar. For my girls."

**iv.**

Baela shakes herself awake every night, and Jena often wakes soon after to find her sitting by the window, staring out at the moon.

There is no moon tonight, only stars, and Baela seems distressed, more even than usual.

"Come back to bed," Jena implores, wrapping her around with a warm blanket. There is spiced wine, easily warmed over the still-smouldering fire, and if that does not help Baela sleep there is a little vial of poppy's milk in the nightstand.

Baela has not slept a full night since Valarr's death, and has suffered night terrors since Saera died, but these past weeks she has been even worse.

"It's so hard," she says, surprising Jena - she usually does not speak, not at this time of night. "Why is it always so  _hard?"_

"Come," Jena says, guiding her from the window seat to the bed, and curling around her back under the blankets to try and warm her. "Tell me, love, tell me what is so hard."

"Finding the right way," she says. "I know that I am right to step down as Rhaegel's Queen, even without the question of the succession, but everyone keeps telling me that I am wrong. I know that it is right that we have Aerys here as Grand Maester, but I still hate him, Jena, I do! I hate him!"

"And no one could blame you for that," Jena reminds her, gathering Baela closer and sighing in relief when Baela lets her back curve to fit against Jena's chest and belly. Neither one of them is as slim and firm as they were when first they did this, but they still fit together like puzzle pieces, and it is still perfectly lovely, like home. "Baela-"

"I just want my girls to be safe," Baela says, voice thick with tears. "As soon as I awoke after Valarr and Aelora were born, that was all I wanted - I just wanted the world to be good enough for my children to live in. I wanted them to be safe, and happy, as I never felt. But the gods have taken my oldest and my youngest, and left me with four grieving girls whose hearts I cannot heal."

"The girls are strong, Baela," Jena says. "They are like you - they will heal. They will come through."

"And Father!" Baela cries, as though Jena has not said a word. "What are we to do without him? None of the four of us have ever known a life without him to guide us, and now-"

"Enough," Jena says. "Enough, love. You cannot save the whole world."

"Of course not," Baela says, "I could not even save my own  _children."_

Jena holds her as she weeps, because there is nothing else she can do. In the morning, Baela will act as if this did not happen, and Jena will keep a closer watch than ever on her for fear of her doing something to hurt herself. Such has been the way of things, since Jena returned to King's Landing from Claw Isle, and such will be the way of things until she can be sure that Baela's mind has not snapped in her grief.

And even if it has, Jena will not abandon her. She loves her too well, and has done so for too long, to ever leave her now.

**v.**

Shiera does not think that she will ever get used to seeing Rhaegel on Daeron's throne.

It never seemed fully her father's, such as she remembers him - she was part of Daeron and Mariah's household almost from the day of her birth, save for the months she sometimes spent in Lady Missy's care, and so was always between Dragonstone and Raventree Hall, tucked away in libraries richer in books of magic than their masters realised. When she was brought to King's Landing, though, she saw her father, the great Aegon the Fourth, and thought him no true King at all.

Daeron, for all his frailty, for his round shoulders and crooked back, for his quiet manner and his slow temper, was a good king. He was just, a lesson Maekar has taken too deeply to heart, and he was kind, and he did his best in terrible situations.

She wonders, sometimes, if Daemon might have been a different man, had he been left to grow up with them all in King's Landing. She knows that Brynden would have been, had he spent more time on Dragonstone and less at Raventree Hall, but she would not have him any different and so she says nothing of that.

"You are certain of this?" she asks, adjusting the drape of Baela's gown as they await the call to enter the throne room. "If not, we will undo it, Braveheart."

"Not so brave any longer, Seastar," Baela says with a small, tired smile, taking a moment to lift her lady love's hand to her lips. "I cannot bear to be a part of this anymore, Shiera, and so I am running away as I so cursed Aerys for doing all that time ago."

Baela's grief has crippled her, anyone could see it, and Shiera knows that Baela is well aware of it. Still, this is perhaps not the worst of decisions, and so Shiera has supported her. It is all she can do, really.

"You are not running away," Daenerys says fiercely, the only woman in the whole of Westeros who Shiera thinks might be more beautiful than she is herself, even with her pale skin all a mass of freckles from the Dornish sun. "You are preserving yourself and your daughters, and no one can ever condemn you for that, little one."

Oh, that has always been a jape between them, tiny Dany and too-tall Baela, but it rings hollow now that Baela seems half of herself and barely even that much.

Mariah comes to them then, her hair almost fully silver and her lovely face shadowed over with pain, but her eyes are soft when she takes Baela's hands.

Baela's ladies, even proud Marcher Jena Dondarrion, are all dressed in Dornish styles today, from Dyanna's layers and layers of semi-sheer lavender and silver silk to Shiera's own white chiffon, and Baela is in the middle of them all in bloody Targaryen scarlet, bare-armed and bare-necked with skirts slit to the knee, which flow about her as she moves. She looks more a queen than Rhaegel looks a king, and more a Martell than a Targaryen, and Shiera has never been prouder of her.

Finally, Baela is doing something she _wants_ , instead of what she should.

"Come," Mariah says, guiding Baela along with her. "He has called for you."

Dany links her arm through Shiera's as they watch Baela walk away, flanked by the women of her household, and she sighs so heavily Shiera half expects her to collapse into nothing.

"Our poor Braveheart," she says, leaning her head on Shiera's shoulder - when they were girls, Baela was often at Shiera's other side, and she in turn would lean on Baela's shoulder, and they were like steps of stairs - and giving another of those body-emptying sighs. "Has she ever known happiness, Shiera?"

Shiera opens her mouth to laugh, to say  _of course, sister, of course,_ but she cannot find the words. She knows that Baela has moments of happiness, in the time spent with her children, in time spent with Maekar, the only brother she still truly loves because their relationship was never tainted, with her household and her lover, but those are only moments. True happiness?

It feels as though it was never Baela's to have, and Shiera wishes she had a spell or potion for that.

**vi.**

Rhaegel weds Alys Arryn with flowers in his hair - Alys puts them there, tucking them behind his ears as the High Septon guides them through their vows, and Mariah wonders why she feels as though she has been here before. 

Rhaegel and Baela's wedding was not so sweet as this, she remembers. Rhaegel had been scared and confused, Baela outright terrified and on the verge of tears, because neither one of them had wanted it but it had been expected of them and so they had gone through with it. Maekar's wedding to his Dyanna had been joyous, Maekar more handsome than he had ever seemed before and overwhelmed by Dyanna and his feelings for her, Dyanna the prettiest girl in the realm and oblivious to anything but Maekar.

And then, it comes to her - Alys hiding a giggle behind her hand, the High Septon frowning in disapproval at bride and groom both. The innocence is unfamiliar, but she can see herself and Daeron, shy and fascinated in equal measure, excited by all that lay ahead of them. 

"He looks so happy," Baela says, sounding relieved. "And Alys is lovely. They will be good for one another, won't they?"

Mariah thinks that they will allow one another to behave as their worst impulses would guide them - not to the harm of anyone, but into an innocent sort of madness, which will leave the realm balanced between Maekar and Bloodraven and Lord Arryn, who is Baela's age and seems a child.

"Aye, child," is all she says, though, because Baela looks as though she is about to split apart at the seams. "They will be happy together, I am sure."

Alys comes to her the day after the wedding, dressed in soft Arryn blue against stark Targaryen black, with a fall of hair the colour of chestnuts. She seems younger than her years, too young to have a son of four-and-ten, too young to be a Queen. 

"I wonder, Your Grace," she says, settling nervously on the very edge of one of Mariah's couches - Mariah's ladies are present, of course they are, settling the solar for the day. They are to receive petitions from other women, who would rather not face Maekar or Bloodraven, and so it must be comfortable, must be welcoming, must be  _safe_. Alys Arryn, though, does not look  _safe_ here, looks instead as though she thinks herself trapped in a viper's nest from which there is only one small chance of escape. "I wonder if I might speak with you about the Princess Baela, and her daughters."

Alys Arryn's too-young face and air of innocence seem all a falsehood now. Not even a day as Queen and already she is seeking to push Baela and her girls aside completely!

"I am sure that it must be difficult for the Princess to be here," Alys pushes on, oblivious, "where her son and daughter died, and I wonder if she might not be happier... Elsewhere."

"Where else, Your Grace?" Mariah asks, leaning back on her couch and accepting a cup of wine with a nod of thanks to Serena, who has been with her since girlhood. "To Summerhall, to impose on my youngest son's family? Or to Dragonstone, which I have already heard denied her by your brother's people, who think that it would be inappropriate for the King's own trueborn daughters to live in the castle rightly theirs, until you produce a son?"

"I would never seek to mistreat the Princess, or her daughters," Alys says, looking frightened now, and Mariah feels only slightly bad for it. "They are my stepdaughters, after all, and I will cherish them - but the Princess is so unhappy, Your Grace. Surely you all can see it? Her heart is broken and will never heal if she stays here. There  _must_ be somewhere else she might go, somewhere she might find happiness?"

Mariah does not want to admit it, but yes, she has seen Baela's broken heart as well, has heard it in the crack in her daughter's voice when she tries to speak of her lost babes or of Daeron, has seen it in the haunted light in her purple-shining black eyes, in the absence of her beloved jewels and bright silks, even in the way she is so distant from her lady, her Jena.

"Your concerns have been noted, daughter," Mariah says. "Thank you for bringing them to me. I will think on them."

And discuss them with Maekar and Bloodraven, with Daenerys and Shiera, and with Jena Celtigar. 

Mayhap it would do Baela good to visit the Water Gardens, to visit Dorne with Daenerys when she returns there. Or she might spend some time at Summerhall, despite Mariah dismissing it to Alys, or even touring the Seven Kingdoms, like Alysanne of old.

Anything, if it will make her smile again. Anything at all.

**vii.**

Dyanna still wakes twice a night, just so she can peep in on Daella, who has finally started sleeping the night through.

It is during the night, on her way from Daella's rooms to her and Maekar's, that she meets Baela, and finally sees the truth of her goodsister's mind.

"It is the worst pain I have ever known," Dyanna says, "and it is as if Maekar doesn't feel a single bit of it."

"Oh," Baela says, turning to her as if Dyanna is the dawn after a too-long night. "Oh, thank the gods. I didn't think anyone would ever  _understand._ "

They sit there, deep into the dawn, until the sun begins the stretch long fingers into the corridor where they sit against the wall, beneath a tapestry of the Young Dragon's failed Conquest of Dorne. Baela cries herself sick twice, and Dyanna makes a note to ask that the vase she made use of is cleaned thoroughly lest it go unnoticed and start to smell, and then Baela falls asleep.

She begins to snore, boneless in the way of the truly exhausted, and Dyanna herself falls asleep stroking Baela's silver-streaked hair. 

She wakes later, bundled in Maekar's arms with the hammer of his heart beneath her ear, and stretches a little against him.

"I woke and could not find you," he says quietly. "I near lost my life, Dyanna - do not scare me so again. I could not bear to be without you."

"I was with your sister," she says, still sleepy. "Come back to bed with me, my lord. I am cold now, and my backside aches from the floor."

"And what would you have me do?" he asks, amused as only she ever seems to notice.

"Why, kiss it better, of course," she says, and falls back to sleep to the sound of his laugh. 

She sleeps longer than she has in almost a year, and wakes feeling as though her head is all stuffed with wool, and lies there a moment and wonders why she feels so changed.

"Rhae is dead," she says aloud, and marvels that the words come out without catching on the lump that so often lives in her throat. It seems gone, and while the pain in her heart is as present as ever, it is more bearable now, and there seems more chance of hope, of a future for them all. "I love her still, but she is dead, and mourning her further will not change that."

Maekar has left her a note, promising to meet her in their solar for the evening meal, and to bring the children with him. By the sun, Dyanna supposes it to be an hour or so before he is due, and so she calls for a bath. Once that is done, she sits before her dressing table for the first time in too long, and sets about making herself look beautiful.

It is hard - her hair does not shine as it used, but it will once again, given a little care. Her skin is dull where it used be luminous, and her eyes shadowed, but both will brighten. She will brighten. There is hope.

Maekar's face shifts the moment he sees her, and he all put pushes the children out the door as soon as they have finished eating, giving them just long enough to kiss her cheek and embrace her as they have seemed almost reluctant to do in so long, and then he is on her, kissing her as her love and not just her husband, and it startles her to realise that they have not done this since the Sickness came, and that seems absurd.

Maekar weeps, there in the quiet of the aftermath, curled into her arms like a child. His powerful shoulders shake under her hands, and while Dyanna is a little alarmed by the intensity of this display, she is pleased, too. They have been wed half their lives, and he has never allowed himself to be so vulnerable before her until now. 

She regrets saying that he does not understand, because when she shushes and soothes him the only thing he can manage to say is Rhae's name, her name and desperate, broken apologies, and Dyanna feels that she has failed him a little, that she has believed the whispers that he has come through losing a child with as little feeling as he faces all else - Dyanna knows better than anyone just how strongly Maekar feels, and understands that he simply hides his feeling under a layer of stoicism and discomfort. He does it to preserve himself, to stave off any rumours, and because he thinks it makes him appear stronger - likely it does, but Dyanna is glad that he does not maintain his mask behind closed doors, when it is just him and her and the girls.

Well, just Daella, now, and she is still able to think of Rhae as being gone forever without wanting to tear her hair out.

She seeks Baela out in the morning, and is shushed as soon as she enters the Maidenvault.

"She has slept from yesterday morning til now," Jena Celtigar says, looking thrilled beyond measure by this. "She woke for a little while yesterday evening, just long enough to eat a little, and has woken to relieve herself, but has otherwise slept solid all day and all night."

"I did almost the same," Dyanna says, wondering if Jena Celtigar knows Baela as well as she herself knows Maekar, and knows how to offer her comfort when it is needed. For Baela's sake, Dyanna hopes so, even though she would never presume to even hint as much. "We... Helped one another understand, I think."

"You've gotten through to her as even I could not," Lady Seastar says quietly, not looking up from her queer looking book. "You have all of our thanks, Princess, for what you have done for Braveheart. We may be able to help her heal now, thanks to you."

**viii.**

"You have all been worrying far too much for me," Baela says, "and not nearly enough for the realm."

There are rumours of more Blackfyres in Pentos, and in Tyrosh, and there is unrest in the Westerlands. There have been whispers that some of the Tyrells are unhappy that Aelora's son will be overlooked if the child in Alys' belly is a boy, and the Lannisters apparently feel left out of all the fun, and are making noises about it.

"You we could not remedy," Brynden says, "but the realm will always right itself."

The small smile that turns his lips and the sharp, smiling smack Shiera delivers to his chest indicate that this was a rare attempt at humour from him, and Baela rolls her eyes. 

"I think," she says, to Brynden and Shiera, to Jena and Daenerys, to Laena and Dyanna and Maekar, and to her girls, who are her every joy but to whom she feels she has become a burden. "I think that perhaps it is time for me to retire from court."

She waits for the cries of dismay to abate, hands folded on the tabletop, and looks to Maekar before any other.

"But where will you go?" he demands, one arm over the back of Dyanna's chair but the other hand a fist on the table, silver-knuckled and fierce. "This is your home!"

"I was rather thinking of a tour of the Free Cities," she says easily, grinning when Shiera's face goes absolutely  _pink_ at the thought. "I might take back up the mantel of Breakspear, given the chance - what say you, little brother?"

"Madness," Maekar says seriously, but Dyanna's eyes are bright, as they get when Maekar tells a joke, and Baela lets herself smile. "But are we not Targaryens?"


End file.
